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ElieB

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Posts posted by ElieB

  3. Posted

    As for F. Gary, I was surprised that he didn't seem like a good fit for this film as his resume is chock full of fun action films (Italian Job, Law Abiding Citizen, A Man Apart) and films that have strong dialogue and/or character interaction (Friday/Straight Outta Compton, The Negotiator). I'm really hoping that he can do a better job with the Fast 9.

     

    Yeah he has a great pedigree for this kind of thing. I particularly like law abiding citizen and the negotiator. But I think those benefit from exceptionally clever writing and performances and I don't know how big a role he has played in the former. Script was really lacking here but I don't otherwise think there was anything great about the direction in fast 8. I think the shaky cam fight scenes and level of practical effects are things he could have had direct influence over though and they came up lacking.

     

    Mostly he just doesn't have any experience with comedy, at all. Friday is as close as it gets. And you can't helm a billion dollar fast franchise without delivering solid comedic relief. With the exception scene stealing Chelios in this case, fast 8 came up short in this regard.

     

     

    That said I did laugh out loud when they reveal Tyrese chose to bring a Lambo on a fucking arctic Russia mission on ice. Real tactical bro. Lol that was a good bit

     

  5. Posted

    If they actually wrote something for her to do, I'd like her a lot more.

     

    Everything about this movie is the exact kind of over-the-top nonsense I love about this series.

     

    I can't argue with that... Which is why I'm hating the team but not what they were trying to do necessarily.

     

    It does seem like this marks a 10 year low-point for women in the series though despite the big bad being a woman this time around.

    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    Thanks Not the Momma!

     

    Ok guys, legit spoilers so don't be dumb about clickin, alright?

     

    So Fast 8 actually clocks in at about 2h10mins but on the website I use to check movie times it said 2h40mins!

     

    Now I tend to bring a couple beers into especially big dumb movie viewings like this. Thinking this was going to be nearly 3 hours long I came prepared. At the end of the russian base and spy plane assault scenes, the movie was only at about 2 hours and Cipher had just ESCAPED capture to get away unharmed! WHAT! At this point I'm POSITIVE we're about to get a real final act that somehow hadn't been revealed at all in trailers and it was really just starting to get good. Maybe-baby-dom is back in safe hands and the team can finally unite with all the new members going after Cipher together. Cause we can't fucking end this movie like this can we? The big bad just GOT AWAY??? So there I am, hands poised to crack open one last beer and then BAM BAM BBQ! Wha-wha-whaaaaat?? Hits me like a ton of bricks that the show is over and this is the bizarro feel-weird ending we're getting spoon-fed. Shaw at the family BBQ and a whole lot of new, out-of-place faces around the entirely un-familiar BBQ local. Where the fuck are we? Why is Mr.Nobody here? NO SPOOKS AT THE DINNER TABLE!

     

    Ugh. It was just so upsetting for a final scene.

     

  7. Posted

    It would for sure still make a great episode just listening to the gang dissect this INSANE plot and how it relates to previous films though. It's pretty fucking laughable.

     

    Also what are the spoiler text box codes again? I had a weird story regarding run-time that I can't relate without giving away specific events.

  8. Posted

    So Ryan basically nailed it. on every point.

     

    But all that being said, I'm totally fine with plot not making a lick of sense, and the ever increasing stakes, and the incestuous 'ladder' of new villains running the show behind the scenes.

     

    What really bothered me is that they've moved away from the incredible practical effects and stunt works that make these movies so unbelievable. The CGI and green screen just can't live up to the hype no matter how high the stakes get. Even though the whole submarine bit in the trailers had me super hyped, it kind of let me down. But if they had used a real sub actually chasing real cars on real ice it would have been unreal.

     

    The second thing is that the team just isn't the same anymore. The chemistry isn't there and the attitudes are just different all around. The same plot and the same dialogue with the fast 5 team would, I'm sure, have delivered. But who the fuck is Scott Eastwood? And Does anyone actually like having Ramsey/Missandei around? I was listening to the F!thismovie podcast for Fast8 and Adam Riske had the perfect analogy. He says that even though it disappointed it's not as if a bad installment ruins the franchise because the Fast movies are like having a favorite sports team. There are going to be great years with great rosters and there are going to be disappointing years, years when you favorite players and total all-stars got traded away or injured or retired. It's the same team, but also not. There's always hope the GM will make some great trades or draft picks in the future, or just rebuild. This roster was a dud. (Even though Hobbs and Chev Chelios were fucking great together and Statham's final scene stole the movie) It's like we traded away Brian, Han and Gisele for Scott Eastwood, Ramsey and a retired Kurt Russel who very aptly do nothing.

     

    It did deliver a lot of classic Fast moments but certainly didn't have that rollercoaster pace of recent installments. Even the opening act in Cuba, which was fun in a classic Fast way, just dragged the movie down cause I've gotten so used to these movies opening with a bang and getting the plot rolling*ahem* almost immediately. These scenes came across as toretto fan fiction...

    • Like 2

  9. Posted

    First thought: Does ANYONE actually like a hacker-fight on screen when a scene volleys back and forth between two people pressing randoms keys to accomplish something completely unintelligible to thwart the other, back and forth? It's the fucking worsssssst!

     

    Much more to say of course but that shit really got my goat

  13. Posted

    There is an entertainment precedent for June's theory that perhaps as Sleepwalkers the characters are not Mother and Son, but perhaps just buddies or co-workers. I present exhibit A - the sitcom THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN - in which the aliens appear as a family, but are different ages and are not related. This will be known in future episodes as the THIRD ROCK FROM THE SUN defense.

     

    Or it really is incest.

    Nailed it. We're with you June.

     

    giphy.gif

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    .............you could literally say that about any teen movie. "Dope" certainly didn't reflect my teen years but that doesn't negate the fact that it's a teen movie.

     

    I beg to differ. I'd say a healthy majority of teen movies tend to feature a pretty wide array of characters to frame the overall varied experience. Dope included. But think anything John Hughes, Dazed & confused, Can't hardly wait, american pie, 10 things i hate about you, Mean girls, fast times at ridgemont high, Superbad, Weird Science, etc. All the big "teen" movies are about that conflict of kids coming to terms with their differences all the while facing the same challenges in different ways.

     

    This is about one particularly extreme experience... Which isn't wrong. But it barely makes it the hit teen comedy they pushed it as. It's closer to Blue Jasmine than it is to being a teen movie. Can anyone appreciate the Breakfast Club at 30 or 40? Sure. We can all see ourselves at that age in that movie. But I bet teenagers today, who weren't even born when it came out, can totally get it as well. I just think it does matter if a teen movie doesn't even land with its key demographic. Whether or not its a good film on its own merits.

     

    Aaaaand i'll leave it at that. Glad you liked this movie. I did as well and don't think it comes close to deserving the HDTGM treatment. This is more of a critical, semantic nitpick is all.

  16. Posted

    Being an outsider is one thing, but then purposefully making yourself an outsider because you're being a selfish asshole is totally a horse of a different color.

     

    It's also barely correlated to a person's age. I think we've all met grown-ass people who behave this way. No? My objection isn't about whether or not her story is a valid subject for a film, it's that it really wasn't the "teen comedy" that it was marketed as. For 99% of people this probably reflected very little of their teen years. I mean just look at this poster.

     

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  17. Posted

    Hmm I could have sworn when i first read this the OP's name was Lucy*something*98. That's a weirdly specific number if it isn't referencing a year. That and her style of writing, I gathered she was 18. Did I imagine that or did she change her screen name? (No offense meant Lucy, pls keep writing!)

     

    I enjoyed this movie but I do think it's both overrated and was fairly misleading with its title and promotion. If you're going to lean so heavily on that specific age/experience, I do think it matters whether people in that age group buy into it.

     

    And though I could relate to her stubbornness & outsider experience in a lot of ways, I still think she was a total asshole who seemed to be wholly incapable of finding nurturing relationships with anyone up to the age of 18(!), even in the era of the internet when you can absolutely find people with shared experience, interests and passions no matter what your deal is. Let alone just finding people in her immediate surroundings who shared her pessimism... After all she was a fairly bright and clever, though neurotic, kid who could have easily charmed other outsiders at her school. But my opinion is a little too far removed from the current state of the dazed and confused so yeah, i would defer to younger folk to judge whether this movie really nailed it or not. Personally I didn't buy it, no matter how cute steinfeld and harrelson were playing off each other.

    • Like 1

  19. Posted

    I thought it was kinda-alright but overrated. She was pretty terrible at being human, straight up. And she was terrible before her dad died, like, as a child... Definitely not getting an episode but as for whether or not it's a bad teen movie? I will defer judgment to the 18 year old lady OP and not presume that my 30 year old ass knows better.

     

    (p.s. I really like imagining woody harrelson as an imaginary friend.)

    • Like 1

  21. Posted

    I love this movie! It's genuinely awesome, like a feature length episode of x-files. I even went as powder for my first halloween as a bald person. It was great. Got all powdered up to get that albino look and taped some super magnets to the inside of a shitty old person jacket. So I walked around sticking metallic things to me or handing them off to people as a party trick.

     

    Oh shit, is it racist to powder yourself to super whiteness? Was I doing Albino Face?

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    *BUMP*

     

    WOW. Watched this last night. Blew my mind that I recognized basically EVERYONE in this movie and had never heard about it... So many actors that went on to have prolific, award-winning careers. And yet it's bananas. Like a monster movie about every single creature cliche and everything is painfully weird. Full of great crazy lines. But it comes around to finally making sense in the 3rd act at which point it actually gets genuinely hilarious. I belly laughed so hard my damn step-counter pushed a notification saying I reached my goal for the day lol. Reminded me a lot of Nothing But Trouble but in romania, less upsetting and actually funny.

     

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    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    I honestly thought it was going to be garbage, but for me, it turned out to be the third best film Shyamalan's made (and granted, the bar isn't that high after you get past those top three, but still).

     

    It was one of the secret screenings at Fantastic Fest, and the response was pretty divided, though, and it largely hinged on how people felt about the ending. I should also note that all of the people I know from that fest kept the ending a secret for almost four months...only to have stories drop the day it came out that spoiled it

    by saying things like, "Not to spoil Split, but Shyamalan's next movie will be another Unbreakable movie." Great, so you just told me Split is an Unbreakable sequel. If they hadn't said anything about Split and just said that Shyamalan was going to make an Unbreakable sequel, it would have been fine, but without fail, most of them tied the two together in their damn headlines, so if you follow any kind of movie development news, it gave the ending away.

     

    Fuckers.

     

     

    That sucks. But I loved unbreakable and went into this having no idea. It did nothing to improve a really terrible movie ending. And I kinda hated it throughout, not just for its bad ending, including the 16 times he visits his psychiatrist to just deny he asked for the meeting, fucccccck off. So much terrible plot development. Not totally irredeemable but just a brutal movie in terms of pace and narrative.

    • Like 2
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